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Microsoft Edge Gets A Nutrition Label

Here’s an idea whose time has come. Nutrition Labels for websites to help combat fake news. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of the idea.

Fortunately, my better half– Kate MacKenzie— thought of it before I came to the realization that such information nutrition labels are a good idea whose time has arrived. Guess who else thinks it’s a good idea?

Good News. Bad News.

As with anything new and different in life, we can find both good news and bad news about something that should help mankind solve a few of its more pressing problems. The good news? A major browser now comes with a built-in nutrition label of sorts, which can be used to help identify and avoid so-called fake news.

The bad news? It’s from Microsoft. Wait. Microsoft is a major technology player, right? Yes, but its new Edge browser is anything but major. Regardless, it’s a step in the right direction. Now, if we can only get Apple to update Safari with similar protection. Then, Mozilla and Firefox. Google surely will follow with Chrome, right? Right?

Edge on iOS has NewsGuard, a built-in feature to identify fake news. Unfortunately, NewsGuard is not on by default so you need to open Edge, then find Settings, then turn on the News Rating setting.

That’s it. NewsGuard is the new Big Brother to help us to figure out who Big Brother really is and whether or not we should read what Big Brother wrote.

For now, Edge and NewsGuard only scan U.S. websites, and I’m rather certain not all of the harbingers of fake news are in the U.S., but free is free. Edge is free and comes with a handful of useful features.

• You can keep watching a video in “picture in picture” mode while browsing • You can know about the reliability of news source through rating flag provided by NewsGuard. • Parents and children can select kids-friendly news contents and recommendable websites curated by MSN Kids in the NTP newsfeed

Edge is aimed more at Windows 10 users so as to keep their browsing experience similar across devices. Funny thing. True story. The most used browser on Windows PCs is Google’s Chrome.

Websites needs nutritional labels by government edict because we cannot trust the websites to be accurate and writers tend to twist facts in ways that support a perspective which is displayed as fact. Extending the edict to all media is only a natural extension of the idea. I want to be one of the monitors.

5G? Meh!

About Wil Gomez

I live in Brooklyn, New York and work in Manhattan; a Mac owner for almost 25 years, and an IT specialist on mixed platforms-- Mac, Windows, and Linux. Read more of my articles here. My fiancée is semi-famous Kate MacKenzie. Follow her on PixoBebo.